If the new GOP Congress doesn’t do something fast to unlock the American economy, its most vulnerable members are going to be defeated in 2012. The consensus among economists is that unemployment will remain at 9% through 2011. A GOP with a 65-seat House majority and 47 Senate seats will not be immune to the surliest public mood any of us has seen. Tea partiers and the Republican Party want to cut spending. But they are mistaken if they think the federal budget is what drove this historic upheaval. Henninger says a genuine pro-growth economic agenda requires more than spending restraint, and if the GOP gets it wrong, he would rather not go where a volatile and angry electorate will take the country.

Republicans are better off after their landslide victory in the midterm election than even they imagine, and the Democrats are worse off. This situation could change quickly, but chances are it won’t. For starters, Republicans will continue to have issues on their side. The election reaffirmed that America is a center-right country and that a sizeable majority is anxious about government spending and debt, the president’s health-care plan, and jobs. Democrats may hope that Republicans elected with tea party support will cause a ruckus by demanding sweeping action. But Barnes thinks Democrats will have more trouble dealing with their own brethren who agree with Boehner’s advice that Obama change course.

Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a Fox News commentator.

President Obama has not been able to muster an argument that resonates with the people that will benefit from the policies he has enacted, Kristof says. The president’s tenor has sharply differed from the poetic way he had campaigned, in addition to his failures of salesmanship and politics. Kristof says President Clinton would make a great tutor to follow to connect both the intellectual and the emotional with voters. Obama has a better product to sell to America than the Tea Partiers do. He needs to lose his cool and start slugging.

President Obama saved capitalism for the big corporations, and at a terrible political price, Egan says. Under President Bush the economy was in the pits, with the worst stock market decline in the history of any president. Today, under President Obama, interest rates are at record lows, corporate profits are up, and it is one of the best years for earnings in a decade. He saved the automobile industry and more than 1 million jobs. Yet his three signature accomplishments–a health care law, financial reform, and the $814 billion stimulus package–have been rejected by the emerging majority. Obama should now recast himself as the protector of the consumer and veto any measures that attempt to roll back basic protections for people against insurance companies, Wall Street, and big oil.

DeMint congratulates all the Tea Party Republicans who overcame a determined, partisan opposition to win their elections. He advises them to put their boxing gloves on, as the fight begins today. While in Washington, he suggests they remember what the voters back home want: less government and more freedom. DeMint concludes that Tea Party Republicans were elected to go to Washington and save the country–not be co-opted by the club. It’s up to them to stop the spending spree and make sure we have a government that benefits America instead of being a burden to it.

Reflecting on the next Congress, Fleischer says life for Republicans also won’t be so simple, especially when it comes to spending. If the president wants to get things done, he must recognize that in Washington only he has the power to make the first big move. Fleischer advises the tea party freshmen to slow the galloping horses to a trot. He notes that big government was built over decades; it can’t be dismantled in a year, especially when Democrats control the White House. If Tea-party Republicans push too hard, they may blow their chances to actually reform entitlements and meaningfully roll back the size of government after the 2012 elections.

Fleischer, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush, is president of Ari Fleischer Communications.